58 DECODING MESSAGES FROM
There then bubbled up Into my consciousness a
series of thoughts and realizations of mental tendencies
in relation to the subject of education that I did not
apprehend had-been disturbing me; these thoughts
and tendencies had, however, evidently been in active
eruption beneath the horizon of my consciousness from
early childhood. I had been carrying around within
me an education complex which had been no small
handicap to me in my life.
Now it may be that even with a great resourcefulness
in the foregoing methods of analysis, you will still be
unable to decode the meaning of your dream; so we
shall have to move along to a consideration of other
factors in analytic technique. Some of the elements
of the dream are liable to be " all mussed up "—as my
little daughter sometimes expresses herself; they may
be either vague and indistinguishable, or else familiar,
yet unrecognizable. We will go after those familiar
yet strange features first.
The strangeness about a dream element is mostly
caused by what is known as condensation and dis-
placement.
It may be that one of your figures looks like some-
one whom you know as regards a stooping of the
shoulders, though the beard is strange; and instead'
of his appearing to wear ordinary trousers, his legs may
seem to be composed of elongated sacks of flour;
or some other seeming incongruity may be in evidence.
In such a case, the form of one person, with some
characteristics of another person blended into it, is an
illustration of condensation; that is, some of the
features of two different people, whom you know, are
condensed into one figure in the dream drama.